but back to the issue of the fiscal cliff, are you being cued in and clued in on what is happening? some republicans have complained that there are negotiations and bargains behind closed doors, that they are getting their information about what is being hammered out, essentially from news report, media reports. do you feel like you are getting enough information? >> i feel like i am being updated regularly. if the question is how i feel about the substance, where they are going, i am not encouraged, especially after the president rejected outright an initial offer by the speaker earlier this week. it didn't happen in a way that gave me confidence that the president is really interested in negotiating. he it gave me the sense that he is not only willing to allow us to go off the cliff burks perhaps he wants to push us off. >> of course, the white house continues to say, that's not what it wants, at least, publicly, but your colleague, senator lindy graham said as much a few days back, he thinks they have made a political calculation that there is a very real possibility that that is